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Rampage
World: 'Rampage *'Location: 'Subsector Adamantis *'Type: 'Death World - Rating: Media *'Tithe: 'Milites The inhabitants of Rampage are universally skilled warriors, and they have provided soldiers to fight where they were needed since the Age of Strife when many Rampagan troops lost their lives on Adamant Prime. *'Population: 107 million 000 000 *'Government: '''City-states. Rampage doesn't have a centralised government, instead each individual city-fort is governed independently. A number of different methods of governance can be found across Rampage including ruling bloodlines, elder councils, and representative democracy. 'Description' A harsh, rocky world of vast plains, rocky plateaus and dusty scrublands, Rampage's climate is rough and dry but otherwise bearable, and its plantlife is basic and hardy. The world's danger comes almost entirely from the extremely dangerous animals that roam its surface in large numbers. While not considered among the worst Death Worlds due to its relatively safe climate & florae, Rampage is home to many of the more dangerous species in Sector Deus. While strong bodies, sharp teeth, and lethal instincts make dangerous animals, Rampage's species tend to show an abnormal level of intelligence that makes them truly lethal. Originally colonised before recorded history, before the Age of Strife, Rampage has always relied on outside assistance to provide them the war materiel they sorely need to survive on their planet. This assistance once came solely from Adamant Prime, but then came from the Imperium as a whole. In the eons since M30 Rampage's fate has been closely linked to Adamant Prime's, and in the periodic absences of Imperial rule Rampage has instead sworn fealty to Adamant Prime (though in practise little changed for them). In return for the deliveries of supplies, arms & ammunition to Rampage they tithe skilled warriors into the vast ranks of the Imperial Guard. Practically every healthy adult on Rampage is considered a capable soldier, who by necessity must be able to defend their homes in combat against the hordes of creatures that seek to kill them. Every adult is expected to fight when needed and thus are all trained to combat troop standards, and when the creatures of Rampage amass against their city-forts all will be expected to man the walls and fight for the alternative is only death. Their experience and training means Rampagan adults are universally exceptional soldiers, to a standard much higher than standard Imperial Guard troops, and thus their tithed regiments are highly effective in any campaign. Rampagans are superior to 'regular' troops in all the standard metrics such as endurance, accuracy, close combat prowess, and physical strength, but their most decisive advantage is in discipline and unbreakable will. Due to the many vicious and dangerously intelligent foes they face the people of Rampage learned long ago that they could only survive through selfless cooperation and commitment towards their people's greater good. To ensure a deeply ingrained sense of loyalty to each other, Rampage adopted a tribal system of development known as Clan-Kin. Rampagan babies are collected into groups of 10 at birth, grouped together by time of birth and sometimes by familiary between the different parents. These 10 are raised together and trained together like siblings, known to each other as their 'Clan-Kin'. The raising & training of the group is shared by the parents of the group as rarely more than three or four parents will be free from other vital duties at any one time, such are the demands of surviving on Rampage. The parents subject the Clan-Kin to the harsh training expectations of Rampage, bringing their children up to be extremely physically capable, skilled in combat, and well-versed in squad tactics. Each group of Clan-Kin inevitably form incredibly strong bonds with each other, and when they reach maturity are conscripted into the Rampagan military as a single fighting squad. While they may spend less time together in adulthood as they find mates and start producing their own offspring, Clan-Kin are always bonded through combat and throughout the rest of their lives they will be deployed together, fight together, and - if necessary - die together. The strong loyalty between Clan-Kin ensures that even the most awful of foes cannot break their will, for they would rather die than abandon their squadmates. This loyalty is what makes Rampagan regiments so potent in campaigns, especially on the defensive. These Clan-Kin squads will be engaged in near-constant guarding & patrolling duties in oder to ensure their fortress-homes are never surrounded & overwhelemd by the native creatures. Stalker Hound nests must be destroyed, Shadow Wraiths must be hunted down, and Hive Beasts must be driven away. If these creatures are ever allowed to congregate around a City-Fort in great enough numbers they are likely to destroy it. Only rarely will particularly exceptional warriors rise above the rest of their Clan-Kin and find themselves promoted to a vaunted Hunter Squad, Rampage's most elite warriors, and this is an event of both celebration & sadness for the Clan-Kin they leave behind. Hunter Squads are small (typically four-man), incredibly potent units and the most experienced are given biological & cybernetic augmentations that make them the most potent warriors in the sector, barring perhaps the Astartes. When the time comes for a City-Fort to send their tithe into the Imperial Guard, they first accept volunteers (for which the Clan-Kin squad must be unanimous) before selecting Clan-Kin groups by lottery, and once a group is selected typically all the males of the group will be tithed into the new regiment. The females are expected to stay behind and raise more groups of Clan-Kin as they are vital to Rampage's population, though rare exceptions may be made. In the Rampagan regiments each group of Clan-Kin is analogous to a fire team and are deployed as such, though as they can vary in number this results in a slightly more ad hoc platoon structure. *'Technology:' – Imperial Rampagans have little tolerance for delicate high technology, valuing reliability and robustness. *'Military:' All adults are naturally a part of Rampage's PDF, and practically every one is trained and experienced to an extreme level of proficiency as they have to fight wars with the native fauna on a daily basis. While most of their troops are standard infantry the Rampagan PDF utilises the full range of the Imperial armoury to fight for their survival including tanks, aircraft and artillery, though such is the lethality of the native creatures that even these offer no assurance of victory. *'Strategic importance: Media Though their Regiments are highly valued, the planet itself performs no vital function. *'Loyalty: '95% With few natural resources of their own and limited industrial capacity, Rampage needs supplies and equipment from the Imperium to survive. Notable locations *'''Cadrecis - The largest city-fort that lies beneath Rampage's sole orbital station, Cadrecis is the only place most off-worlders would ever visit on the planet. Well defended with high walls and extensive gun emplacements, along with the guns of the station above, Cadrecis is relatively safe by Rampagan standards. Its defence force is heavily mechanised so they have many personnel to tithe into Rampagan Armoured Regiments. *'Alvhand' - A city-fort built alongside a river running through hills and valleys, Alvhand must battle constantly with Stalker Hound packs and its population are well versed in combat against them. The population of Alvhand are considered excellent shots and the city-fort has some of Rampage's best snipers, trained to eliminate Stalker Hound alphas as they sprint at high speeds. *'Dusken' - Located in an enormous valley that is often shrouded in dim light. The areas surrounding Dusken are festooned with Shadow Wraiths and so Dusken's population are considered the finest scouts and infiltrators Rampage can produce, skills honed through generations of caution & instinct. *'Ebbamourne' - This city-fort is located on the Great Sandstone Plains and is mostly untroubled by typical predators. Instead they must beware of encroaching Stonewardens or massive herds of Raxibou that threaten to trample their farmlands constantly. To combat these threats the people of Ebbamourne extensively use domesticated Tarkree to redirect herds as if they were cattle, and drive Stonewardens away while staying out of their reach. The people of Ebbamourne are therefore skilled riders, and contribute cavalry units to the planetary tithe. Notable Species of Rampage Rampage holds a massive array of creatures, all of them dangerous in an equally massive array of ways. *''Rampagan Hive Beast'' - A colossal self-contained hive of reptilian horrors the size of a small manufactorum, lumbering across the rocky landscape on pillar-like legs as swarms of chtinous, teeth-filled lizard creatures swarm in all directions to bring prey back to the their hive. Capable of shrugging off all but the most obscenely powerful of ordnance with its thick carapace, a Hive Beast itself is nigh-indestructible. Hive Beasts are largely avoided by humans for good reason, but when one begins to approach a city the defenders must hold back the ravenous vanguard lizards until an orbital bombardment can be targeted on the Beast itself. If the beast has gotten too close to the inhabited area for an orbital bombardment the city will usually deploy one of its elite Hunter Squads to land on the creature and destroy it from the inside, a dangerous mission that cannot fail. *''Shadow Wraith'' - A two metre tall, thin bipedal creature with an incredibly large number of chromatophores in its skin, giving it astounding ability for camouflage. In addition to this the deepest layer of its thick hide contains a type of natural silicate, capable of absorbing incident rays of light and turning it into energy. Because of this a Shadow Wraith'' can remain hidden almost indefinitely provided there enough light to sustain it. When an unfortunate victim eventually crosses a Shadow Wraith's path it lashes out with long, slender claws, aiming for vulnerable regions like the eyes and throat, before feasting upon victims with a wide mouth of needle-like teeth. On select and terrifying occasions Shadow Wraiths have been known to infiltrate the City-Forts themselves despite incredibly stringent security measures controlling those who can leave and enter. No one quite knows how a Wraith could successfully enter a City-Fort, but the fact that they still do is a testament to the danger they pose. *Stalker Hound ''- Perhaps the most formidable foe on the planet is the highly intelligent Stalker Hound, a mammalian pack hunter of formidable cunning. The Stalker Hound has been known to change tactics quite extremely depending on the foes they fight. When a pack encounters a Hive Beast for example they have scouts draw away a number of its vanguard organisms, leading them into a trap to be torn apart by the rest of the pack. But when their sharp sense of smell detects a Shadow Wraith nearby they have been observed stampeding wildly, summoning a dust cloud that reveals the location of the invisible would-be predator. Perhaps most alarmingly, when encountering large groups of humans the Stalker Hounds have employed battle tactics more often seen in an Imperial Guard manual. Multiple units of hounds work in concert with each another across great distances, somehow prioritising targets among the humans. Displaying a hive-mentaility certain units in the Stalker Hound pack will willingly put themselves into situations of almost certain death if it forms part of a larger plan, soaking up heavy bolter and autocannon fire whilst their compatriots circle around and strike from behind. How exactly they comunicate their intricate tactics with each other is unknown, but on the few occasions one has been captured alive it remains completely catatonic unless given a chance to kill or escape. Due to their behaviour some xeno-scholars theorise that the individual Stalker Hounds of a pack are simply small parts of a larger hive mind, able to willingly sacrifice parts of itself for the greater benefit as well as formulate intricate plans and learn at a terrifying rate, such theories however remain unproven. *''Stonewarden'' - One of the few creatures on Rampage capable of surviving alone. Stonewarden' primary defence machnism is camouflage, for their hide is covered in a thick rocky chitin that allows them to impersonate one of the many stony outcrops that litter the landscape or blend into the bare moutains and cliffsides. They also have a barely detectable scent and are capable of entering a voluntary hibernation at will which reduces their breathing (and auspex lifesigns) to miniscule levels. Should this defence mechanism fail, it can be offset by the fact that a typical Stonewarden is six to eight metres tall and strong enough to overturn a Chimera APC. Humanoid in shape, Stonewardens are stocky and extremely tough, able to resist heavy calibre fire and even survive direct battle cannon strikes. Fortunately they are rarely aggressive unless approached and keep to themselves, feeding off plants, soil, and the occasional victim. *''Pterascythe'' - A flying sauran beast, the Pterasythe has a three metre wingspan along with large vicious-toothed jaws while its name is derived from the long, slender claws it rakes with as it passes overhead. The Pterascythe is a far-reaching predator that travels in small groups of around half a dozen, and they hunt together as a dangerous pack able to bring down prey even bigger than themselves. Their thick leathery hides make them very resilient for flying beasts, while their high speed makes accuracy troublesome. Thus they usually require dedicated AA fire to bring down in numbers. *''Raxibou'' - A bovine herd creature. Raxibou are heavy, lumbering creatures that travel in herds that can number in the millions. They have inch-thick leathery skin reinforced with bony spurts, while their large, blunt teeth are perfect for grinding up the dirt and roots that give them their sustenance. Raxibou are not especially fast but they have a thick body, powerful legs, and incredibly hard hooves, able to crush a Stalker Hounds' skull with a kick. While Raxibou are not typically aggressive, a stampeding herd is nigh unstoppable and can sweep through almost anything unless diverted. *''Dirgers'' - These are hefty herbivorous mammals that travel in familial packs. These large quadrupeds are around four metres tall at the shoulder and very strong, as well as unexpectedly swift on their feet when provoked. The packs work together intelligently in defence of themselves, forming defensive walls with their wide, distinctive skullplate of thick bone while flanking groups will strike from the side with long tusks. They are named for the wailing noise made by the pack when one of their number is killed. *''Spined Drake'' - A species of large lizard, typically five to six metres long and known to inhabit caves & mountains. These large creatures live in familial packs and are very swift when sprinting on their four powerful legs. Long claws and sharp teeth are not their only form of offence, as they are also capable of spitting globs of sticky promethium-like substance that ignites on contact with air. Their defence consists of thick hide and a heavily spined carapace that makes it dangerous to get too close. *''Tarkree'' - An equine herd beast of tremendous speed. A Tarkree stands roughly two metres tall at the shoulder and has a dusty red hide that blends into the great sandstone plains from which they mostly hail. Naturally wary, a Tarkree herd will bolt at the sight of predators at great speed, though any stragglers tend to be swiftly picked off. Tarkree also make excellent mounts, and there is a large population of domesticated Tarkree on Rampage alongside the wild herds. They are faster, tougher, and have more stamina than the standard horse, but have notably reduced carrying capacity by comparison. *''Blue Kite'' - This large bird of prey has a wingspan around two metres in breadth and is quite common. Their feathers have a light blue colouration that alows them to blend into the sky and they are naturally omnivorous, feeding off anything from berries to small rodents to carrion. Almost considered vermin themselves by Rampagans, Blue Kites have been known to prey on children and even attack adults in their City-Forts. The Blue Kite's true dominance of the skies however lies in their cooperative nature, an unusual phenomenon for birds of prey. A gang of Blue Kites can be exceptionally dangerous, swarming a victim with razor claws and serrated beaks. Category:Planet Category:Imperial World Category:Death World Category:Subsector Adamantis